Maybe, This Time, You Were Wrong
by AMKelley
Summary: Dean carries a lot of weight on his shoulders and this burden only seems to grow when him and Sam make a quick stop at a gas station.


Dean felt drained both physically and emotionally to the point where he just wanted to give up and admit defeat. He could say this all started when Crowley ran off with the First Blade, leaving him high and dry, but that wasn't the first nail. Everything that's ever happened to them was enough to make Dean want to throw in the towel, Abbadon just happened to be convenient.

There were a lot nails, more than he could count. Dad, Yellow Eyes, Bobby dying, Ellen and Jo, Lisa and Ben, Castiel, Kevin, Gadreel, Purgatory, Lucifer, Heaven, Hell, Metatron, and Sam... There were countless other nails hammered into heart but these were the ones that stood out the most. Dean felt overwhelming guilt and denial over many things, even things Sam didn't know about. Even things Dean didn't want to think about anymore.

But even those ghosts ultimately can't escape him.

They had drove all night without stopping. Sam took a cat nap or two while Dean was fighting to stay awake since he was so intent on finding Abbadon. He barely blinked for the entire night. Even when they stop Abbadon, they still have Metatron to deal with, but Dean casts that thought aside. That isn't important right now.

Come sunrise, despite his stubborn will, Dean is exhausted and feels compelled to at least make a pit stop for gas even though he still has half a tank left. He spots a sign telling him it's ten miles until the next rest stop and he can both feel and hear his stomach start to protest loudly. Dean can't remember the last thing he ate, but he knows it's been a while. He figured he could pick up some provisions as well. Definitely beats drinking whiskey for breakfast.

Dean pulls the impala up to the pump when he finally reached the gas station. The impala jerked slightly as Dean steps on the brakes suddenly, the motion jostling Sam out of his light slumber. Sam breathed deeply through his nose and released it with a strained, sleep heavy sigh. Dean watched as Sam rustled his mussed hair and took a haphazard look around.

"Rise and shine, Sammy," Dean greeted casually mostly out of reflex by now.

"Have you been driving all night?" Sam inquired with a groggy tone before he yawned.

"Let's get some breakfast," Dean urged, ignoring Sam's question as he habitually slaps the younger man on the arm.

Dean stepped out of the car to avoid anymore questions Sam might feel inclined to ask and starts pumping gas into his Baby. Sam followed soon after, taking an extra moment to stretch his long tired limbs. He doesn't know where they are, but it doesn't seem to matter much when his stomach is twisted into knots.

Sam walks around the impala and comes to stand next to Dean who pointedly carried on as if Sam isn't there. Sam watched his brother, trying to think of the right words, knowing one false word would be enough to get Dean overworked. He was about to say something but it got lost on his tongue when Dean cut him off.

"How about you rustle us up some grub?" Dean asked in an exceptionally gruff tone. He spared a glance at Sam who gave him a funny look. Dean didn't like what that look implied. "I'll be there in a second. Go."

Sam acquiesced to Dean's firm tone and headed towards the convenience aspect of the gas station. Dean didn't have to mind the pump manually, he more or less just wanted a moment to himself no matter how brief it was. Just one minute of silence. One minute of forgetting all the judging glares of people he's failed in the past and the lives he'll potentially ruin in the future.

Dean closed his eyes before he knew it the pump dinged, signaling that the tank was full. He groaned inwardly and dragged himself towards the store to pay for the gas. He caught Sam milling around the fridges for something to drink out of the corner of his eye as he paid the man behind the counter.

He mumbled something like a _thank you_ to the clerk and walked to the back of the store to join his brother and see what he picked out. He juggled beef jerky and other convenient snacks as he contemplated between the different beverages. Dean rolled his eyes. Sam could never decide what he wanted to drink.

The older Winchester was ready to turn around and wait for him in the impala when Sam called out softly to Dean.

"Dean," Sam said with a melancholic tone.

Dean regarded him with a raise of his brows as he pulled a personal bottle of Coke out from behind the frosted glass door. Sam looked it over for a brief second before he stretched it out to Dean to take. Dean didn't take it at first because he wasn't sure why Sam was suddenly so moody.

"Look..."

"What?" Dean snapped indignantly, snatching it from Sam's big hand when he strongly insisted he take it. "It's just a bottle pop."

"Turn it around."

Dean sighed with heavy exaggeration.

"I don't understand what I'm supposed-" He cut off his own sentence as he peered down at the label, at a momentary loss for words.

He was speechless for the longest minute as he read the words on the label over and over.

 _Share a Coke with **Adam**._

It was printed in bold, white letters and glared at Dean incessantly as if Adam himself were here right now judging him. He couldn't stomach the wave of guilt that rippled through him then as he remembered the horrified glimmer that had shone in Adam's eyes as Michael was dragged into Lucifer's Cage. He shoved the bottle back at Sam mirthlessly, finding it to be in poor taste.

"We're leaving in five," is all Dean can muster to say and Sam seemed to get the hint.

Back on the road, Dean couldn't get the youngest of them out of his head and it didn't help that Sam had decided to purchase that damn bottle of Coke that just served as further proof of Dean's failures. Sam hasn't even opened it yet. He just kept staring at the name on the bottle as if it would magically bring the kid back. But it wouldn't.

"Do you ever think about him?" Sam asked without mentioning who _him_ was since it was painfully obvious.

"We got other things to worry about," Dean replied automatically, ignoring Sam's need to vent his feelings.

"But do you?" Sam insisted, furrowing his brows at the side of Dean's face.

"We met the kid like twice and one of those times his likeness was jacked by a ghoul. Who tried to eat you, by the way," Dean rattled off, gesturing with his hand all the while. "So why would I?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because he's our brother," Sam informed, raising his voice an octave higher than before. The anger was evident in his tone.

"Just 'cause we have the same dad don't mean he's family. And he certainly isn't a Winchester," Dean argued with a raised, defensive tone. His cheeks were burning with guilt as he slipped further into denial.

"You don't actually mean that..." Sam insisted, lowering his voice once more. "We could have saved him. Somehow... We could've gotten Adam out of the Cage. If it were Bobby, or Cas, or me, you would have found a way."

"That's different..."

"How so?"

"Because Adam made a choice," Dean said with a clenched jaw, refusing to look at Sam as his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter until his knuckles went white.

He didn't want to think about Adam. He didn't want to acknowledge the suffering he must be enduring right now, if he was still alive down there. Dean _did_ feel guilty about Adam and despite everything he missed him as well, but he would never admit that to Sam.

"We make choices all the time, Dean. How was Adam any different? What? Did you not love him enough?"

"Don't even start, Sam," Dean warned.

He wasn't in the mood for discussing his relationship with Castiel to Sam right now even though the it had been a topic speculation for quite some time. Sam, thankfully, drops it.

"He was a distraught kid that wanted his mother back, Dean. He was manipulated and tricked by Zachariah," Sam went on to say, hoping something would stick inside Dean's stubborn skull. "And it's our fault... My fault especially..."

Dean looked over at his brother who suddenly resorted to hunching over and cradling the bottle of Coke as if it were an infant. Dean wanted to snatch it out of his hands and toss it out the window, but he didn't. He thought that maybe he should console his brother somehow, but he couldn't think of anything to say besides the obvious.

"Sammy, what's ever left of Adam is gone now, okay? And there's nothing we can do to change that," Dean said eventually with an exhausted sigh.

"Maybe this time you're wrong..."

Sam doesn't allude to Adam or the Cage anymore after that and instead opts to turn the radio on to fill in the uncomfortable silence between them. Sam spared another look at the bottle of Coke.

 _Share a Coke with **Adam**._

"Thirsty?" Sam inquired, holding the bottle out to Dean who regarded it with a contemplative glance.

"No, I'm fine," Dean declined softly, turning back to the road.

Sam's hand retracted and he smirked ruefully to himself. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, laying it on his lap, "It probably tastes bitter anyway."

And with that, things fell silent between them once again.


End file.
